The winner, and up to seven others, will have the opportunity to share a lunch with Buffett at New York City's Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. Some winners, however, have preferred to meet with Buffett in his home town of Omaha.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Chinese hedge fund manager Zhao Danyang and his son stand with Warren Buffett after placing the winning bid in a charity auction for lunch with the billionaire investor in 2009.

For the 16th consecutive year, San Francisco's Glide Foundation will get all of the proceeds from the auction. It describes its mission as trying to "alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization."

The highest final bid over those 16 years was $3,456,789 in 2012 made by a winner who chose to remain anonymous.

Andy Chua of Singapore was last year's high bidder, paying almost $2.2 million.

Here's a look at how the price of lunch with Buffett has grown over the years.